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Family set to stay in Canada

Okotoks: Guillermo Cervantes gets near last-day two-year extension to work permit
Immigration
Guillermo Cervantes and his wife Irma Rojas Vertiz Canut are relieved to receive a two-year extension on their work permit, which was scheduled to expire on Dec. 1.

An Okotoks resident who feared he would have to leave the country received a near last-day extension to his work permit.

Guillermo Rojas Vertiz Cervantes, who has lived in Okotoks since 2015 with his wife and two children, got word on Nov. 29, his work permit, which was scheduled to expire on Dec. 1, has been extended for another two years.

It was welcomed news to the family.

“We are so happy because we have lost all this stress,” said Cervantes, who is from Mexico. “I feel more relaxed, you have no idea how different I feel right now.”

Canada Immigration had refused Cervantes permanent resident status application because he was deemed being self-employed. He feels that he is an employee of Café Cancun Co. Inc.

He said he’s now focused on him and his family getting permanent residency status.

Cervantes gave credit to Foothills MP John Barlow and his office in getting the extension.

“He talked to immigration on our behalf, without his intervention I don’t know what would have happened,” the 44-year-old Cervantes said.

Barlow said there is still work to be done for the family.

“This gives us some additional time to work on the permanent residency, but this obviously takes a lot of the pressure off for right now,” Barlow said. “We are working through some different scenarios to move this along — some different strategies for their permanent residency being processed over the next few months, but the best news is we got some time.”

Barlow said it was his office staff that did much of the work in getting the extension.

“They did a lot of work with the minister’s office and I met with Minister Hussen [Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship] on Wednesday and explained the situation and asked him to intervene on the permanent residency application.

“A lot of the issue comes down to the two definitions the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) has as self-employed and what Canada Immigration has as self–employed.

“It was brought to our attention that there is a discrepancy there and it is something the government has to address. Hopefully, they can take a look at it and find some harmony between those two definitions so others don’t have to suffer.”

While Barlow and Co. were working on the file, they were getting blasted a bit on social media for not getting things done.

It comes with the territory.

“When someone opens a case file, there is a trust it is confidential,” Barlow said. “I am not going to talk about it unless I have their permission.

“I really want to clarify that what I read from a couple of people is we weren’t doing anything — Carrie [Fischer] was on the phone with the minister’s office, CIC and with the family on a regular basis.

“I talked to the minister personally. These things don’t often come to the public forum, but this one has. We have a strict rule that we don’t discuss this outside the office and we want to maintain that.”

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